Lectern

This bookwork is exhibited on a table in a ‘reading room’ context. The archival images are three different representations of Louise Michel, an anarchist, feminist and an organizer of the Paris Commune. They picture an heroic portrait, a police photo from the time of her arrest and a newspaper caricature. Masks are cut in the paper pages revealing a ‘quote’ from photographed book pages beneath. The texts are from Michel’s biography by Edith Thomas and from Michel’s published memoirs. The centre spread shows the police photo, an enlarged camera lens and the text from the memoirs: “In the times in which we live it is proper to pass only for oneself”.